It is safety first for the injured Frankel

Contrary to rumours, Frankel's manager, Lord Grimthorpe, and his trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, say the world's highest-rated thoroughbred may miss his next race but that he has not been retired.

There is no telling when jockey Tom Queally will climb aboard Frankel again to race, or for that matter if the horse will ever race again.

Frankel, the world's highest-rated thoroughbred, is expected to miss his next scheduled Group 1 race even though rumours that he has been retired because of injury have been refuted.

It had been suggested on Saturday that Frankel may have run his last race after an injury to his off-fore.

But Lord Grimthorpe, the racing manager to the owner, Saudi Arabia's Prince Khalid Abdullah, denied those claims and said no decision has been made concerning the unbeaten horse's future.

However, it is likely that the plan of running Frankel in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury in England next month has been shelved. Frankel's programme was to also take in a race at Royal Ascot in June, either the Queen Anne Stakes over a mile, or the Prince of Wales's Stakes over 1m 2f if Sir Henry Cecil, his trainer, deemed it was right to step up in trip the nine-time winner.

"It'd be too early to rule him out of Ascot [but] Newbury would be very unlikely," Grimthorpe said.

The four-year-old colt sustained the injury on Wednesday morning when working with regular partner Bullet Train after which Frankel came back with swelling in his leg.

"Originally we thought it was superficial. There was some filling in the leg so we had to take precautions," Grimthorpe, who was at Aintree for the Grand National, said. "When we know about that a decision on his future will then be made. No decision has been made regarding anything to do with his future at the moment. He certainly hasn't been retired at this stage and it's incorrect to think that. We are hopeful and quite positive that he will be OK, but at the moment, we really don't know.

"At the moment there is nothing to say."

Frankel had an initial scan with a portable device which showed no damage.

He will be taken later this week to Newmarket's equine hospital.

"The initial scan led us to believe and hope it was superficial or just a minor injury," Grimthorpe said.

"Obviously, with a horse of this nature, or any horse actually, we have to be incredibly careful, especially with injuries of this type in this area.

"With these type of injuries it takes a while for that to dissipate so in order to get a good picture he will be scanned on a big machine which will tell us definitely if there is any damage."

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